AMD spells out architecture plans

It's Gorillazilla, Chimpzilla avers

Leak 1 As accurately reported in both AMD Zone and JC's Pages, the Athlon 200MHz front side bus (FSB) will shortly increase to 266MHz, giving 2.128Gbps, while the EV6 bus it uses will scale successfully to 400MHz.

An AMD presentation says that while Willamette (the Intel Pentium 4) will use the 400MHz data rate at 64 bits, this may be scaled back to match prices of mainstream PCs. Foster, AMD thinks, will have a 128-bit 400MHz FSB too.

Intel calls chipsets "hubs", says AMD, the memory hub being the North Bridge, the IO hub the South Bridge, and the Firmware hub Flash. The Intel hub philosophy replaces PCI, but this will be challenged by AMD's LDT (lightning data transfer) technology, which it is licensing royalty free, as reported elsewhere. This will come in speeds of .8 and 1.6GHz.

AMD will, again as reported on the hardware sites mentioned above, move to USB 2.0 but think it will take between two to three years to arrive big time. Firewire (1394) gets a big vote from Chimpzilla.

The home network is almost here (not in Eastern Europe, shurely?) with Ethernet over CAT-5 cables now being built into new homes. AMD thinks Bluetooth is really a replacement for infra red and external cables. With support from 1,826 companies and individuals, the cost per node is likely to be around $25, dropping to $5 in a couple of years.

An 802.11b wireless Ethernet node will cost around $100, with an access point costing as much as $250. AMD thinks that must drop to around $25 per node for it to become popular in the home. Many developments such as cable modems will be overtaken by DSL by the middle of next year, says AMD.

And AMD wants to be a Gorillazilla, according to one slide, providing not just processors, but architecture, and platform designs. It wants to provide the highest performance at a competitive price in all segments. ®